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| Allegory of Music - Laurent de La Hyre - source The allegorical figure tunes a theorbo. At her shoulder is a songbird, symbol of natural music, whereas by contrast she may be a representation of modern music theory and practice. To the right are various contemporary instruments and scores: a lute, a violin, two recorders, a vocal exercise, and a song in two parts. |
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'
SONNET INDEX
Mnemonic Image: an octave of MUSIC; sideways infinity ∞
Note: The only two sonnets which concern music are Sonnets 8 and 128. See Fred Blick's Number symbolism in Shakespeare's Sonnets 8 and 128 Pythagoras, Perfect Numbers, Triangular numbers and Musical Harmony for a deep analysis of the musical and mathematical relation between the two.
Memory Passage: Beauty's ROSE solitary in a muddy World War I TRENCH. Reflecting in a GLASS (mirror) the face of the EXECUTOR, Death, who admires the FRAME of bone, adjusts it with his HAND to catch the SUN. Suddenly, the world is full of MUSIC (infinite octave).
Idiosyncratic Imagery: The Young Man hears the sublime music of the spheres resonant throughout his being. He knows intuitively he is the physical manifestation of the Neoplatonic One. The music through its harmonies sorrowfully reminds him of his divided self, the lack of harmony between his physical, emotional and intellectual / spiritual aspects. He is like the Steppenwolf, always at war with himself. And while the music has the capacity to transport him, similar to the effect of music upon Harry Haller and the vision of the Golden Track, the music also gives him a heightened self-consciousness of his own inner divisions. The Young Man follows the Poet's analogies. Perhaps there is a Golden Path towards self-harmony through marriage and children, but he doubts this path is for him. He suspects the Poet also does not entirely endorse this path for him, that there is philosophical static in between the stations of father, mother, child and the speechless song sung by the three as one. The logical anatomizing of music into a familial triad (as the elements of a chord) is weak, as is the premise that it takes three to sing, to harmonize with, the transcendental harmony.
Couplet Imagery:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'
The three musical notes of the Father, the Mother and the Child in unison, compose a harmonious chord which sounds as One speechless song. This song causes sorrow in the Young Man because he comprehends its ineffable meaning: knowing as long as he remains single, he will never attain this harmonious union, never be able to participate in this familial music. Also, a play on the sense in which one was not considered a number.
Booth notes the pun of none as nun - a barren womb; but also subtler notes of an implicit sacrifice of sexuality for God, nuns are the Brides of Christ, mystically betrothed.
Note the Neoplatonic theme of Oneness. The three seem one by making music together. Perhaps an implicit relief in knowing the Young Man, through music, can do the same for himself, solipsistically. Also the interpretative tension in singleness being none.
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'
The three musical notes of the Father, the Mother and the Child in unison, compose a harmonious chord which sounds as One speechless song. This song causes sorrow in the Young Man because he comprehends its ineffable meaning: knowing as long as he remains single, he will never attain this harmonious union, never be able to participate in this familial music. Also, a play on the sense in which one was not considered a number.
Booth notes the pun of none as nun - a barren womb; but also subtler notes of an implicit sacrifice of sexuality for God, nuns are the Brides of Christ, mystically betrothed.
Note the Neoplatonic theme of Oneness. The three seem one by making music together. Perhaps an implicit relief in knowing the Young Man, through music, can do the same for himself, solipsistically. Also the interpretative tension in singleness being none.
Q1:
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
Music to hear is an epithet for the Young Man. The ghost of the Muse here embedded. The Poet is disarming though, saying in effect: You yourself, with your beauty and grace, in speech and thought, you are music. So why does this music make you so sad? (cf. Merchant of Venice: "I am never merry when I hear sweet music.")
There are three visual elements to this scene: the music being played, the Young Man listening and the Poet observing the Young Man as he listens. I imagine the Young Man is demonstrably sad: tears falling down his face. The Poet says to him: You are like music yourself. Why does this music make you sad? Knowing the Young Man's love for the "common wisdom" of proverbs, the Poet explains, sweet creatures do no make war with other sweet creatures, and joy by its very nature delights in more joy. As you are a sweet and joyful music yourself, why do you make war and take no delight in the sweet and joyful music being played?
As several commentators have punily remarked, via the MoV, the scene here can be imagined as a marriage ceremony where the music is merry.
Then, knowing how the Young Man is amused by sexual metaphors, the Poet asks him why he is not glad and seems even annoyed by that which he usually loves to receive, to open himself up to, to allow himself to be penetrated by? Graphically: you usually love to be fucked by the music just as you love to be fucked by other men, what is it about this particular fucking that bothers you? (With an undertone here that recreational acts of sodomy are not as socially harmonious as procreational acts of breeding.)
Q2:
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Concord, "with hearts together", well-tuned, true, strings stretched into harmonious relationships with each other (Plato). It is through this musical relationship, union, unison, that they are married.
I see the Young Man responding to the Poet's question about why the music makes him sad with a sullen poet, saying simply, "It offends my ear."
And Q2 is the Poet's reply. Note the elaboration of
true concord
well-tuned sounds
unions married
Vendler writes: "This sort of logical division of a single entity into multiple (and therefore elaboratable) aspects is one of Shakespeare's most common inventive moves, widely shared with his contemporaries and borrowed of course from commonplace logical training."
It is mnemonically helpful here to align these elaborations into the corresponding Neoplatonic transcendental categories:
true concord - Truth
well-tuned sounds - Beauty
unions married - Goodness
Thus, the Poet is reminding the Young Man, who will later be represented in the sequence as the unknowing avatar of the One, that through inner alignments and tunings, these separate aspects now have the voice to rebuke and reprimand him. Their claim is that the sorrow and annoyance he feels is due to his confounding singularity. Note that s was printed as f in the Quarto and there would have been a visual pun in con-sounds. Much has been said about confounds here. (See Paterson below.) Most helpful is to understand it as "a mixing up" or "a pouring together". Interpretative tension in that this singleness is comprised of separate elements which have been improperly mixed together by the Young Man. Perhaps implying that his Narcissistic inwardly turned illuminations of Truth, Beauty and Goodness produce a false sense of selfish Oneness and represent a neglect of the social parts, responsibilities, that he should bear. (Note another typographical pun in bear / hear which is prompted by the rhyme with ear. Also a latent sense of bear as in bear children.) Perhaps there is also an indication of self division, an inner dis-harmony.
The scenario of the Wedding Party is resonant. This ceremony between two people in front of family, friends and neighbors is vital to the integrity and strength of the community. The two make an oath, swear to stand by their words - until death do they part - in the presence and under the implicit authority of their immediate social world. (cf. Wendell Berry, Standing by Words and In the County of Marriage.) The meaning and value of the language is thus authorized and underwritten in this most basic of social contracts and ceremonies.
The Poet is telling the Young Man if he would "bear up" to his social responsibilities, as a husband and then a father, he would take joy and pleasure from this merry music of marriage.
Q3:
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
It is helpful to figure the Poet as the Ancient Mariner, halting the Wedding Guest with this tale.
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
Music to hear is an epithet for the Young Man. The ghost of the Muse here embedded. The Poet is disarming though, saying in effect: You yourself, with your beauty and grace, in speech and thought, you are music. So why does this music make you so sad? (cf. Merchant of Venice: "I am never merry when I hear sweet music.")
There are three visual elements to this scene: the music being played, the Young Man listening and the Poet observing the Young Man as he listens. I imagine the Young Man is demonstrably sad: tears falling down his face. The Poet says to him: You are like music yourself. Why does this music make you sad? Knowing the Young Man's love for the "common wisdom" of proverbs, the Poet explains, sweet creatures do no make war with other sweet creatures, and joy by its very nature delights in more joy. As you are a sweet and joyful music yourself, why do you make war and take no delight in the sweet and joyful music being played?
As several commentators have punily remarked, via the MoV, the scene here can be imagined as a marriage ceremony where the music is merry.
Then, knowing how the Young Man is amused by sexual metaphors, the Poet asks him why he is not glad and seems even annoyed by that which he usually loves to receive, to open himself up to, to allow himself to be penetrated by? Graphically: you usually love to be fucked by the music just as you love to be fucked by other men, what is it about this particular fucking that bothers you? (With an undertone here that recreational acts of sodomy are not as socially harmonious as procreational acts of breeding.)
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| The Old Guitarist - Picasso - source |
Q2:
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Concord, "with hearts together", well-tuned, true, strings stretched into harmonious relationships with each other (Plato). It is through this musical relationship, union, unison, that they are married.
I see the Young Man responding to the Poet's question about why the music makes him sad with a sullen poet, saying simply, "It offends my ear."
And Q2 is the Poet's reply. Note the elaboration of
true concord
well-tuned sounds
unions married
Vendler writes: "This sort of logical division of a single entity into multiple (and therefore elaboratable) aspects is one of Shakespeare's most common inventive moves, widely shared with his contemporaries and borrowed of course from commonplace logical training."
It is mnemonically helpful here to align these elaborations into the corresponding Neoplatonic transcendental categories:
true concord - Truth
well-tuned sounds - Beauty
unions married - Goodness
Thus, the Poet is reminding the Young Man, who will later be represented in the sequence as the unknowing avatar of the One, that through inner alignments and tunings, these separate aspects now have the voice to rebuke and reprimand him. Their claim is that the sorrow and annoyance he feels is due to his confounding singularity. Note that s was printed as f in the Quarto and there would have been a visual pun in con-sounds. Much has been said about confounds here. (See Paterson below.) Most helpful is to understand it as "a mixing up" or "a pouring together". Interpretative tension in that this singleness is comprised of separate elements which have been improperly mixed together by the Young Man. Perhaps implying that his Narcissistic inwardly turned illuminations of Truth, Beauty and Goodness produce a false sense of selfish Oneness and represent a neglect of the social parts, responsibilities, that he should bear. (Note another typographical pun in bear / hear which is prompted by the rhyme with ear. Also a latent sense of bear as in bear children.) Perhaps there is also an indication of self division, an inner dis-harmony.
The scenario of the Wedding Party is resonant. This ceremony between two people in front of family, friends and neighbors is vital to the integrity and strength of the community. The two make an oath, swear to stand by their words - until death do they part - in the presence and under the implicit authority of their immediate social world. (cf. Wendell Berry, Standing by Words and In the County of Marriage.) The meaning and value of the language is thus authorized and underwritten in this most basic of social contracts and ceremonies.
The Poet is telling the Young Man if he would "bear up" to his social responsibilities, as a husband and then a father, he would take joy and pleasure from this merry music of marriage.
 |
| The Ancient Mariner - Dore - source |
Q3:
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
It is helpful to figure the Poet as the Ancient Mariner, halting the Wedding Guest with this tale.
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
The Ancient Mariner / Poet now speaks with the "glittering eye" of the enchanting rhapsode. He has transfixed the Young Man's attention, compelling him to see the vision of Q3. The urgent and heedful Mark sounds out first: "Mark my words!" (cf. HAMLET: Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll go no further. Ghost: Mark me.) See how one string husbands, guards, controls, watches over, another string. The note of domestic violence, sweet husband striking wife and child, is vivid and memorable but surely unintentional. Rather, the image of musician plucking / striking the strings of a lute, composing a chord with three fingers, is more in the spirit of the poem.
Note resembling. Whenever Shakespeare uses words such as resembling, seems, shadows, appears, shows, they serve as indicators of the deeper shadow sonnet themes. Appearance is only a shadow of the truth.
These three separate familial notes, reference to the Trinity, reference to the Neoplatonic Triad, are here emphasized as being all in one. Then again, the sing this One note.
Couplet:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'
The couplet pounds the nail all the way in, this song with no words is sung by the three, but seems as if it come from one. Such is harmony, unison, and the source of the Young Man's sorrow. He can feel the music stirring his depths. The Poet here "translates" the speechless song: If you stay single, one, no number, you will, in the end, become none.
Note here the impossibility of language, speech, being able to explain what music means. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. It is the failure of a lesser and more limited mode of expression to contain the greater and unlimited expression which transcends it. The fish has no words to explain water. The water, like Heidegger's Being, is always at-hand.
Sing forms an acoustic knot with single. And as Vendler remarks, this and the strain of the conceits may have subtlety comforted the Young Man:
"They are made fresh here by the psychological presence of the philosophical problem of the Many and the One, as embodied in the young man's sulk at the prospect of his Oneness having to turn to Manyness. Shakespeare's reconciliation of the problem via music (perhaps borrowed from the Arcadia) is not new, but his straddling of the solution is: the strings sing one note, in truth, but the sound they make only seems one, and is many. Both oneness and manyness exist, existentially, in the music, in equal dominance. This is (or ought to be) reassuring to the young man; it clearly is to Shakespeare."
SONNET INDEX
Note resembling. Whenever Shakespeare uses words such as resembling, seems, shadows, appears, shows, they serve as indicators of the deeper shadow sonnet themes. Appearance is only a shadow of the truth.
These three separate familial notes, reference to the Trinity, reference to the Neoplatonic Triad, are here emphasized as being all in one. Then again, the sing this One note.
Couplet:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'
The couplet pounds the nail all the way in, this song with no words is sung by the three, but seems as if it come from one. Such is harmony, unison, and the source of the Young Man's sorrow. He can feel the music stirring his depths. The Poet here "translates" the speechless song: If you stay single, one, no number, you will, in the end, become none.
Note here the impossibility of language, speech, being able to explain what music means. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. It is the failure of a lesser and more limited mode of expression to contain the greater and unlimited expression which transcends it. The fish has no words to explain water. The water, like Heidegger's Being, is always at-hand.
Sing forms an acoustic knot with single. And as Vendler remarks, this and the strain of the conceits may have subtlety comforted the Young Man:
"They are made fresh here by the psychological presence of the philosophical problem of the Many and the One, as embodied in the young man's sulk at the prospect of his Oneness having to turn to Manyness. Shakespeare's reconciliation of the problem via music (perhaps borrowed from the Arcadia) is not new, but his straddling of the solution is: the strings sing one note, in truth, but the sound they make only seems one, and is many. Both oneness and manyness exist, existentially, in the music, in equal dominance. This is (or ought to be) reassuring to the young man; it clearly is to Shakespeare."
Via The Laughing Bone: I break open stars and find nothing: Why did the music not say, No?
From Steiner's 1966 essay, Silence and the Poet, in Language and Silence:
Because their language had served at Belsen, because words could be found for all those things and men were not struck dumb for using them, a number of German writers who had gone into exile or survived Nazism, despaired of their instrument. In his Song of Exile, Karl Wolfskehl proclaimed that the true word, the tongue of the living spirit, was dead:
Und ob ihr tausend Worte habt:
Das Wort, das Wort ist tot.
Elisabeth Borcher said: "I break open stars and find nothing, and again nothing, and then a word in a foreign tongue." A conclusion to an exercise in linguistic-logical analysis, which Wittgenstein carefully stripped of all emotive reference, though he stated it in a mode strangely poetic, strangely reminiscent of the atmosphere of Holderlin's notes on Sophocles, of Lichtenberg's aphorisms, had turned to a grim truth, to a precept of self-destructive humanity for the poet. "Whereof one cannot speak, one must be silent."
SONNET INDEX
Illustrations
At a Solemn Musick by John Milton
Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heav'ns joy,
Sphear-born harmonious Sisters, Voice, and Vers,
Wed your divine sounds, and mixt power employ
Dead things with inbreath'd sense able to pierce,
And to our high-rais'd phantasie present,
That undisturbèd Song of pure content,
Ay sung before the saphire-colour'd throne
To him that sits theron
With Saintly shout, and solemn Jubily,
Where the bright Seraphim in burning row
Their loud up-lifted Angel trumpets blow,
And the Cherubick host in thousand quires
Touch their immortal Harps of golden wires,
With those just Spirits that wear victorious Palms,
Hymns devout and holy Psalms
Singing everlastingly;
That we on Earth with undiscording voice
May rightly answer that melodious noise;
As once we did, till disproportion'd sin
Jarr'd against natures chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair musick that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway’d
In perfect Diapason, whilst they stood
In first obedience, and their state of good.
O may we soon again renew that Song
And keep in tune with Heav'n, till God ere long
To his celestial consort us unite,
To live with him, and sing in endles morn of light.
***
Merchant of Venice. 5.1
LORENZO
Sweet soul, let's in, and there expect their coming.
And yet no matter: why should we go in?
My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you,
Within the house, your mistress is at hand;
And bring your music forth into the air.
Exit Stephano
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Enter Musicians
Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn!
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.
Music
JESSICA
I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
LORENZO
The reason is, your spirits are attentive:
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.
***
Don Paterson: "Not to mention the brilliance of that word confound. The rhyme will have suggested it, the bravery of his talent will have sanctioned it - but WS's transcendental skill with syntax and lyric weave allowed him to actually get away with it. Skipping the neuroscience, line-length in poetry universally defaults to something around three seconds long - the length of the human auditory 'present', which corresponds to what we can retain in our minds as a living instant: three seconds is the frequency of the carrier-wave of poetic sense. By the same rule, there are about three seconds or so on either side of a word in which it can be prepared for, or retrospectively sanctioned (unless it has a salient position, like a rhyme word; there are noisier, and can be committed to memory then recalled several lines later). In the case of confound, offend in 1.6 gets the ear ready for it, and soon the g in singleness waves in what could have been the rogue hard c. This is all poet's lore, and it supposed to be registered unconsciously by the reader. Confound is employed in a very unusual way here - but so seamlessly has WS woven it into his soundscape, he's practically fashioned it a new definition."
***
Katharine Wilson:
Delia
Sonnet LII. Like as the lute, that joys or else dislikes
Samuel Daniel (1562–1619)
Like as the lute, that joys or else dislikes,
As is his art that plays upon the same:
So sounds my Muse, according as she strikes
On my heart strings, high tuned unto her fame.
Her touch doth cause the warble of the sound,
Which here I yield in lamentable wise,
A wailing “descant” on the sweetest “ground,”
Whose due reports give honour to her eyes.
Else harsh my style, untunable my Muse;
Hoarse sounds the voice, that praiseth not her name!
If any pleasing relish here I use;
Then judge, the world! her beauty gives the same.
O happy “ground” that makes the music such!
And blessèd hand that gives so sweet a touch!
***
Kerrigan:
Arcadia III.5
"And is solitary life as good as this? Then can one string make as good music as a consort."
MND IV.1.111-117, where Hippolyta describes the 'music' of the hounds in the field; "such gallant chiding... So musical a discord, such sweet thunder."
"One is no number" proverb
See Marlowe's Hero and Leander
"confounds: : destroys. Informed, as often in Shakespeare, by the implications of Latin confundere: 'to pour together, topple in confusion, bewilder, disastrously mingle.'"
***
Booth:
"Unions joinings, unifications, marriages. ... A 'union' is also appropriately reminiscent of a 'unison,' a musical term meaning 'a sound or note of the same pitch as another' or 'the agreement of the sound of two or more bodies vibrating at different rates' [OED cites a music text of 1596: 'A concord is divided into a Unison, Third, Fifth, Sixth..."].
Vendler:
The "invention" at work in the elaborate conceit of harmony (lines 5-14) is the decision to divide the music into its three parts: its sounds or aural effect (lines 5-8); its strings or medium (lines 9-12); and its song or content (line13-14). This sort of logical division of a single entity into multiple (and therefore elaboratable) aspects is one of Shakespeare's most common inventive moves, widely shared with his contemporaries and borrowed of course from commonplace logical training. p 80
However, the resolution of many parts in one unision / (being many, seeming one) is of obvious relevance as an aesthetic principle for the Shakespearean sonnet, which because or its four discrete parts, runs and inherently greater risk of disunity than does the Italian sonnet. p 80
The assumed preestablished harmony between music and a harmoniously ordered human soul exists in the young man; he loves music, and normally receives pleasure from hearing it. p 80
They are made fresh here by the psychological presence of the philosophical problem of the Many and the One, as embodied in the young man's sulk at the prospect of Oneness having to turn into Manyness. p 81
From Wikipedia:
It is appropriate that Sonnet 8, a sonnet of musical descant, is placed as the 8th sonnet, since an "eight" is a "true concord."
From http://www.williamshakespeare-sonnets.com/sonnet-8
Sonnet 8, a sonnet of musical descant, is suitably placed as the 8th sonnet, since an “eight” is a “true concord.”
A “true concord” intends both ‘with cords together’ and ‘with hearts together’ (con + corda = with hearts together).
But it can only be a “speechlesse song,” an ‘unvoiced song’ (with a hint at infans = speechless), if a third, a child, is not produced to make up the concord. Without it their song can only remonstrate, “thou single wilt proue none;” “proue” points to the mathematical maxim, ‘One is no number’ or ‘One is as good as none,’ which Whitney, like Shakespeare, in his motto Mutuum auxilium (“mutuall societie”) renders, “The prouerbe saieth, one man is deemed none, / And life, is deathe, where men doo liue alone.” 7
Foreground Narrative:
The foreground narrative of the sonnet orbits around a strained musical conceit: separate notes combine together to produce beautiful music, unison, concord (con + cord = with hearts together), chord, in which all these separate sounds combine as one. As he listens to this music, which he loves, the Young Man is reminded of his singleness and is filled with a sorrow, a nostalgia for union. The Poet uses this occasion of sorrow brought on by the music to advance his procreation theme. He tells the Young Man the reason this harmonious music fills him with sorrow is because the Young Man is stubbornly insisting upon his singleness. Part of what makes the music so beautiful is in the union of three notes which make up a chord, a harmonious whole. The Poet tells him this familial unison, the three working together as one, remind him that his single life, his solitary note, while beautiful in its own melodic way, will never produce an enduring music unless he marries himself to other notes and (here strain) gives birth (bears) a child. Then, he will be part of the three that as a harmonious chord sound as one.
Background Themes:
Obviously, the procreation theme is predominant. The sonnet is ostensibly working to persuade the Young Man to marry and produce a child, an heir. Also to ensure that his beauty, his aesthetic legacy, will endure beyond his own life.
There is also a latent Christian theme in the strained Trinity of the Father, Mother and Son.
What is most prominent is the Neoplatonic theme here initially asserting itself. This is the "hidden image" in this sonnet and is the ground for much of the sequence overall. Three notes uniting in harmony to become One music is directly analogous to Beauty, Truth and Goodness as transcendental emanations of the Neoplatonic God, the One, the Ideal.
The mnemonic narrative I imagine is Shakespeare working to reconcile his evolving understanding of the living presence of the Young Man with his poetic Platonic ideal. The spiritual imperative pulsing in the heart of the poem is to recognize those aspects of the One in the temporal transient world, within and without, and to harmonize your thoughts and actions to these in order to become unified with the One. Seek out beauty, cultivate Truth, practice Goodness in your life so that you might be closer to the Will of God. Align your soul with the Transcendent so that you may have a spiritual life which will endure beyond the material one.
The strain with the musical conceit is that it does not necessarily follow that the Young Man must unite with two others, a wife and a child, to find harmony with the One. There is also a problem with the sequential logic in that the father and the mother must first unite to produce the child which can only sing with them after it has been born.
I see Shakespeare encountering the Young Man at a marriage ceremony. Shakespeare observes the Young Man standing apart, enraptured by the music and deeply saddened, suffering from a nostalgia for a future he knows will never be his, his heart heavy with imagined impossible possibilities: a lovely and living wife, a sweet child, laughter in the mornings over breakfast, the three of them in bed on a cold night. Shakespeare approaches the Young Man and asks what is the matter? The Young Man signs and says he doesn't know why he is sad. He actually loves this piece of music. But there is something aching and nostalgic about it that just makes him want to stand outside of the happy world of the marriage party and feel the full weight of his aloneness.
Shakespeare considers many conversations he and the Young Man have had about philosophy. The Young Man asserting his desire to live a life in harmony with Beauty and Truth and Goodness. However, his passions and self-centered desires always seem to distract him from the path back towards the One, the Godhead of the Ideal. Shakespeare sees an opportunity to appeal to the higher elements of the Young Man's attention by aligning a musical conceit with the harmonious trinity of a family and indicating how it might allow the Young Man to find a path to the One.
Drafts:
Q2: Sweetly chide not by dissonant sound but by consonance, you, who confounds, con-sounds your song, single song, your insistence on not needing others to find your resonance or being a part of another song, the implied morality of should - that shadow of theme of moral duty in the procreative sonnets, you should bear, also bear children, note the word hear inside there - sugared sonnets - you should be playing many parts but you condense these, reduce these to one part, one single part, when you should, should, be un-condensed, contracted to thine own eyes, or the inward turned burying of your blossom in your blood.
"Unions joinings, unifications, marriages. ... A 'union' is also appropriately reminiscent of a 'unison,' a musical term meaning 'a sound or note of the same pitch as another' or 'the agreement of the sound of two or more bodies vibrating at different rates' [OED cites a music text of 1596: 'A concord is divided into a Unison, Third, Fifth, Sixth..."].
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Vendler:
The "invention" at work in the elaborate conceit of harmony (lines 5-14) is the decision to divide the music into its three parts: its sounds or aural effect (lines 5-8); its strings or medium (lines 9-12); and its song or content (line13-14). This sort of logical division of a single entity into multiple (and therefore elaboratable) aspects is one of Shakespeare's most common inventive moves, widely shared with his contemporaries and borrowed of course from commonplace logical training. p 80
However, the resolution of many parts in one unision / (being many, seeming one) is of obvious relevance as an aesthetic principle for the Shakespearean sonnet, which because or its four discrete parts, runs and inherently greater risk of disunity than does the Italian sonnet. p 80
The assumed preestablished harmony between music and a harmoniously ordered human soul exists in the young man; he loves music, and normally receives pleasure from hearing it. p 80
They are made fresh here by the psychological presence of the philosophical problem of the Many and the One, as embodied in the young man's sulk at the prospect of Oneness having to turn into Manyness. p 81
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From Wikipedia:
It is appropriate that Sonnet 8, a sonnet of musical descant, is placed as the 8th sonnet, since an "eight" is a "true concord."
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From http://www.williamshakespeare-sonnets.com/sonnet-8
Sonnet 8, a sonnet of musical descant, is suitably placed as the 8th sonnet, since an “eight” is a “true concord.”
A “true concord” intends both ‘with cords together’ and ‘with hearts together’ (con + corda = with hearts together).
But it can only be a “speechlesse song,” an ‘unvoiced song’ (with a hint at infans = speechless), if a third, a child, is not produced to make up the concord. Without it their song can only remonstrate, “thou single wilt proue none;” “proue” points to the mathematical maxim, ‘One is no number’ or ‘One is as good as none,’ which Whitney, like Shakespeare, in his motto Mutuum auxilium (“mutuall societie”) renders, “The prouerbe saieth, one man is deemed none, / And life, is deathe, where men doo liue alone.” 7
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Foreground Narrative:
The foreground narrative of the sonnet orbits around a strained musical conceit: separate notes combine together to produce beautiful music, unison, concord (con + cord = with hearts together), chord, in which all these separate sounds combine as one. As he listens to this music, which he loves, the Young Man is reminded of his singleness and is filled with a sorrow, a nostalgia for union. The Poet uses this occasion of sorrow brought on by the music to advance his procreation theme. He tells the Young Man the reason this harmonious music fills him with sorrow is because the Young Man is stubbornly insisting upon his singleness. Part of what makes the music so beautiful is in the union of three notes which make up a chord, a harmonious whole. The Poet tells him this familial unison, the three working together as one, remind him that his single life, his solitary note, while beautiful in its own melodic way, will never produce an enduring music unless he marries himself to other notes and (here strain) gives birth (bears) a child. Then, he will be part of the three that as a harmonious chord sound as one.
Background Themes:
Obviously, the procreation theme is predominant. The sonnet is ostensibly working to persuade the Young Man to marry and produce a child, an heir. Also to ensure that his beauty, his aesthetic legacy, will endure beyond his own life.
There is also a latent Christian theme in the strained Trinity of the Father, Mother and Son.
What is most prominent is the Neoplatonic theme here initially asserting itself. This is the "hidden image" in this sonnet and is the ground for much of the sequence overall. Three notes uniting in harmony to become One music is directly analogous to Beauty, Truth and Goodness as transcendental emanations of the Neoplatonic God, the One, the Ideal.
The mnemonic narrative I imagine is Shakespeare working to reconcile his evolving understanding of the living presence of the Young Man with his poetic Platonic ideal. The spiritual imperative pulsing in the heart of the poem is to recognize those aspects of the One in the temporal transient world, within and without, and to harmonize your thoughts and actions to these in order to become unified with the One. Seek out beauty, cultivate Truth, practice Goodness in your life so that you might be closer to the Will of God. Align your soul with the Transcendent so that you may have a spiritual life which will endure beyond the material one.
The strain with the musical conceit is that it does not necessarily follow that the Young Man must unite with two others, a wife and a child, to find harmony with the One. There is also a problem with the sequential logic in that the father and the mother must first unite to produce the child which can only sing with them after it has been born.
I see Shakespeare encountering the Young Man at a marriage ceremony. Shakespeare observes the Young Man standing apart, enraptured by the music and deeply saddened, suffering from a nostalgia for a future he knows will never be his, his heart heavy with imagined impossible possibilities: a lovely and living wife, a sweet child, laughter in the mornings over breakfast, the three of them in bed on a cold night. Shakespeare approaches the Young Man and asks what is the matter? The Young Man signs and says he doesn't know why he is sad. He actually loves this piece of music. But there is something aching and nostalgic about it that just makes him want to stand outside of the happy world of the marriage party and feel the full weight of his aloneness.
Shakespeare considers many conversations he and the Young Man have had about philosophy. The Young Man asserting his desire to live a life in harmony with Beauty and Truth and Goodness. However, his passions and self-centered desires always seem to distract him from the path back towards the One, the Godhead of the Ideal. Shakespeare sees an opportunity to appeal to the higher elements of the Young Man's attention by aligning a musical conceit with the harmonious trinity of a family and indicating how it might allow the Young Man to find a path to the One.
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Drafts:
Q2: Sweetly chide not by dissonant sound but by consonance, you, who confounds, con-sounds your song, single song, your insistence on not needing others to find your resonance or being a part of another song, the implied morality of should - that shadow of theme of moral duty in the procreative sonnets, you should bear, also bear children, note the word hear inside there - sugared sonnets - you should be playing many parts but you condense these, reduce these to one part, one single part, when you should, should, be un-condensed, contracted to thine own eyes, or the inward turned burying of your blossom in your blood.
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